This is a place where I share my ideas and my writing and put into practice my hopes for greater connection, critical thinking and clear expression amongst people who care about our world, our communities, and each other. Social and political issues, writing, language, fathers and fathering - these are some of the things you'll find here.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Shame, Fairfax, Shame!

Fairfax staff – journalists, columnists, sub-editors, and printing staff of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, and some other small papers – are on strike this weekend in protest against the publishers' massive job cuts. And rightly so.

It is indeed a shame they sacked him, but not only for the loss of his talent.It is the act of true corporate scumbaggery to sack striking workers – and worse to hire scabs to replace them!The union is now arguing that Carlton's sacking is illegal.

SMH journalist Gerard Noonantold ABC News, "the cuts will threaten the media's ability to hold politicians and the powerful to account." Yes, he is right.

Meanwhile, Fairfax is trying to go on as if there is no strike and trying to put its media content out. You may have noticed that The Age Online is still churning out stories and updates as if there is no strike by the journalists – but appearances are misleading. Most of the stories since about midday today, if not earlier, are off the newswires – AFP, AAP and others. It appears as if some online staff may be left to tidy up the newswire reports, but that is uncertain.

In fact, a news item on the tropical storm hitting the Carribean bears the disclamer: "This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units." So apparently there are not enough scabs to tidy up all the newswire items and editors are just plugging them in to their system.

Sloppy. Cheap. And nasty.

You can contact the journo's union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, to show them your support and solidarity for the strikers, remembering that a fair few of them will be relatively low-paid reporters, printers, and quite likely bloggers and online content staff...

3 Comments:

It certainly is a dark day. I went down to the protest yesterday and it'll be interesting to see the impact on the Sunday paper. While journos are not filing there must be a lot of content on file to use.

About Me

I am a writer and a reader, and believe in the power of words and images to make a difference. I make a basic living helping other people's words look good, and need to express my ideas in my own words and images to keep sane. I am also a father: my two young sons are currently the joy and challenge of my life, and I'm loving it.